[1] Forced to leave Germany during the 1930s, Rosenau was one of a number of influential European Jewish intellectuals who brought innovation to academic study in the UK and US.
[1] After finishing high school in 1923, Rosenau studied art history at a number of universities, including Munich under Heinrich Wölfflin, Berlin under Adolph Goldschmidt, Bonn under Paul Clemen, and Hamburg under Erwin Panofsky.
[4] From 1935, Rosenau contributed regularly to a number of British academic publications, including Apollo, The Burlington Magazine, and the RIBA Journal.
[4] Rosenau's "progressive humanist and feminist outlook" was also evident in her lectures to the Conway Hall Ethical Society, and columns for the International Women's News.
[4] From 1941, Rosenau worked at the London School of Economics under the sociologist Karl Mannheim, researching the historical depiction of women in art.
[1] Of this, History Today wrote that "the book's main strength lies in its author's synoptic vision and her exposition of the relation between philosophical ideals and architectural forms.
[5] The new setting in full colour is prefaced by a personal memoir by a former student, Adrian Rifkin, a study of the author's life in Britain as a refugee scholar by Rachel Dickson and a portrait of Rosenau as feminist intellectual followed by a suite of seven essays by Griselda Pollock analysing the significance of the book as a work of feminist social history of art .